NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule early last month, the first people to ride it. Leaks and thruster failures almost derailed their arrival at the International Space Station, and has kept them there much longer than planned.

In their first news conference from orbit, they said they expect to return once thruster testing is complete here on Earth. They said they’re not complaining about getting extra time in orbit, and are enjoying helping the station crew.

“I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem," Williams told reporters.

The two rocketed into orbit on June 5 on the test flight, which was originally supposed to last eight days.

NASA ordered up the Starliner and SpaceX Dragon capsules a decade ago for astronaut flights to and from the space station, paying each company billions of dollars. SpaceX's first taxi flight with astronauts was in 2020. Boeing's first crew flight was repeatedly delayed because of software and other issues.

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Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the contract Tuesday at a Chamber of Commerce industry day focused on increasing NATO member countries' defense manufacturing capabilities to deter future attacks.

“There is no way to provide strong defense without a strong defense industry," Stoltenberg said.

The Stinger is a portable surface-to-air defense system that can be carried and fired by troops or mounted onto a vehicle and used as short-range defense against aircraft.

The Raytheon-produced system was one of the first weapons the U.S. shipped to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion. It is now among hundreds of types of systems, and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, artillery and missiles, that countries have pulled from their stockpiles to help Ukraine. But the rapid push over the past two years exposed that defense firms both in the U.S. and in Europe were not set to produce at the levels needed in a major conventional war.

The NATO summit is also occurring against a backdrop of uncertainty: U.S. political divisions delayed weapons for Ukraine for months and the upcoming presidential election is raising concern that U.S. backing — with weapons and troops — in case of threats against member countries may not always be guaranteed.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has boasted during campaign speeches that he'd encourage Russia to do as it wished with NATO members that do not meet their commitment to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense.

In some cases, defense production lines were stagnant at the time of the 2022 invasion and are only now getting production numbers up. The buildup has been dependent on getting new, longer-term contracts signed to support more capital investment in the needed infrastructure.

“This is not about shifts or a bottleneck. It’s building new factories,” said Morten Brandtzaeg, the chief executive officer of Nammo, a Norway-based ammunition firm.

The war also spurred those NATO members to increase the amount they spend on defense.

Out of 32 NATO members, 23 are expected to meet the 2% commitment this year, up from just six before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That's seen as still not enough, as Russia has leveraged the sheer size of its workforce to rapidly replace weapons lost in the war.

“If you want to fight a war for a long time, you need to have an industry behind you, that has the capacity for a long time,” Brandtzaeg said.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Chamber of Commerce that Russia is now spending an estimated 7% to 9% of its GDP on defense. Estonia is spending more than 3% of its GDP on defense, but needs to do more to refill its stockpiles, Pevkur said.

Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also serves as a deputy prime minister, said his country will commit at least 4% of its GDP to defense this year.

The war in Ukraine “exposed major weaknesses of Poland, of region and of the world at large,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

Since the invasion, the U.S. has provided more than $53.6 billion in weapons and security assistance to Ukraine. This support, at a time when the U.S. also is sending weapons to Israel and Taiwan, has strained the U.S. stockpile. The rest of the NATO members and other international partners have provided about $50 billion altogether in weapons and security assistance, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an independent research organization based in Germany.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan told Tuesday's gathering that for the first time ever, the NATO countries will each pledge to make plans to strengthen their own industrial defense capacity. He said this would help the alliance “prioritize production of the most vital defense equipment we would need in the event of a conflict."

The 32 members have widely varying defense industry sizes and capabilities, so each country's plan could vary widely, from partnering with industry to partnering with other countries.

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Cook reported from Brussels.

This same weapon is widely used by Ukrainian soldiers against Russian invaders, plus Taiwan recently had a USD $60.2 million Foreign Military Sale of 720 of these loitering munitions approved.

Canberra’s announcement did not mention quantities or price, but it said the first examples would reach Australia later this year and enter Australian Defence Force service in 2025.

Pentagon to issue guidance on open radio access networks to support 5G

The Switchblade 300, which has a 3.69-pound (1.68kg) warhead and 19-mile (30km) range in its latest Block 20 variant, will “boost the ADF’s arsenal of drones, including those capable of being armed,” according to a Department of Defence statement.

The weapon can be transported in a backpack, before being launched from a tube.

“With autonomous weapon systems increasingly prevalent, the Defence Strategic Review made clear that new technology and asymmetric advantage are important priorities,” said Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy. “The delivery of this proven precision loitering munition demonstrates the speed at which we are introducing capabilities to the ADF.”

However, his reference to speedy introduction is incongruous. Ukraine has been demonstrating the utility of loitering munitions for the past 2.5 years of combat, and yet Australia is only now introducing this class of weapon.

Indeed, Travis Reddy, CEO of the Australian firm DefendTex, criticized the ADF for its tardiness in acquiring any loitering munitions. His company manufactures the D40 drone, essentially a flying 40mm grenade.

He told Defense News the Australian government even prevented DefendTex from exporting warhead-equipped D40s to Ukraine, because its fuse had not “been through all the certification and qualification stages”. Therefore, the Australian company could send only camera-equipped D40s.

Conversely, the “U.K. took a pragmatic approach” and delivered to Ukraine 300 warhead-equipped D40s that it had commercially procured from DefendTex. Reddy said this D40 case “very much talks about this risk-adverse culture that exists within Defence”.

“We’re running programs right now to develop Australian drones,” Conroy said. “And we’re hoping to get them into the inventory as soon as possible.”

One example is the One-Way Loitering (OWL) munition developed by Western Australia-based firm Innovaero.

Innovaero officials didn’t immediatelyrespond to Defense News requests for details, but it is known the OWL is being trialed by Australian Army special forces, and more will be delivered to the army this year.

The OWL is in a different class to the Switchblade 300, since it has a 125-mile range, 100-minute endurance and carries a 15-pound anti-armor or fragmentation warhead.

Another Australian firm delivering drones to Ukraine is Sypaq Systems. Amanda Holt, Sypaq’s CEO, previously told Defense News that her firm had been delivering 100 low-cost Corvo drones per month, and that Ukrainian troops often jury-rigged them with explosives to act as loitering munitions.

Aircraft are traditionally painted using a masking technique, requiring painters to use tape, film and paper to outline certain markings for a particular aircraft.

The new system being tested projects insignia and markings directly on the aircraft, providing the exact placement of objects that need painting without all the masking.

So far, the laser projection system is dramatically easier to use than the old stenciling method, according to Steven Lofy, senior materials engineer for the center’s corrosion and wear team.

“It takes an extensive amount of time and labor to mask aircraft for the application of major markings and insignia during the final finish process,” Lofy said in a statement. “It’s a demanding process based on old, paper drawings that can be difficult to read, making it challenging for our artisans to mask the exact areas on each aircraft consistently.”

Navy assembles F-35B clutch for first time

It’s also saving time, he said.

“With the laser projection system, we can simply come in, turn on the projectors and actually project where each marking should be on the aircraft,” Lofy said. “All we have to do from there is line each stencil up, mask and paint.”

The readiness center first utilized the system in January on a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey for the aircraft’s signature white, horizontal stripes — resulting in an 85 percent decrease in labor hours. While the process previously took roughly 16 hours, the projector brought that number down to two.

The center has used the laser projection system to paint four aircraft so far and plans are underway to use the system more broadly by uploading 2D stencils to the projection system’s software, according to the Navy.

Based out of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, the center provides maintenance and repairs for Marine Corps aircraft — including the F-35B Lightning II. It is one of the Navy’s eight fleet readiness centers.

Even a “reasonably modified” version of the Northrop Grumman-made Sentinel will likely cost $140.9 billion, 81% more than the program’s original cost estimate of $77.7 billion, the Pentagon said in a statement. If Sentinel continues on its current path without being modified, the likely cost will be about $160 billion, it said.

And the military expects restructuring the program will delay it by several years.

“There are reasons for this cost growth, but there are also no excuses,” William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said in a conference call with reporters on Monday. “We fully appreciate the magnitude of the costs, but we also understand the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront.”

The Sentinel is intended to replace the Air Force’s half-century old Minuteman III nuclear missile, which is nearing the end of its life. In January, the Air Force announced Sentinel’s future costs were projected to run over budget severely enough to trigger a review process known as a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.

Such a review can sometimes lead to a program being canceled. LaPlante said Monday he decided to proceed with Sentinel after concluding it met several criteria, including that it is essential to national security and there were no cheaper alternatives that would meet the military’s operational requirements.

Big changes are coming for Sentinel, however. LaPlante rescinded the program’s Milestone B approval, which in September 2020 authorized the program to move into its engineering and manufacturing development phase. He also ordered the Air Force to restructure the program to address the root causes of the cost overruns and make sure it has the right management structure to keep its future price down.

The per-unit total cost for Sentinel was originally $118 million in 2020, when its cost, schedule and performance goals were set. When the Nunn-McCurdy breach was announced in January, those per-unit costs had grown at least 37% to about $162 million.

Hunter said the per-unit cost for the revised Sentinel program — which include components in addition to its missiles — is estimated to be about $214 million. He said the estimates from the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, or CAPE, office came with a 50% confidence level, meaning the costs could end up higher or lower.

Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said he agreed with LaPlante’s decision and pledged to draw up a plan for restructuring Sentinel over the next few months and get to a new Milestone B approval. The entire process for revising the program and getting the Pentagon to approve its new plan, cost and schedule will likely take 18 to 24 months, Hunter said.

Command and launch

LaPlante and Hunter said most of the projected overruns are coming from Sentinel’s command and launch segment, which will include its missile silos and accompanying launch control centers where airmen operate the ICBMs. Revamping that segment will be a major part of the Air Force’s cost control effort, they said, as well as improving its systems engineering and changing how its contract is structured.

LaPlante said changes will include a “scaling back” of the launch facilities to make them smaller, simpler and more cost-effective. Paring down the launch facilities will also shorten the timeline needed to transition from the existing Minuteman III system and the new Sentinel facilities, he said.

Hunter said the new Sentinel facilities will need more communications infrastructure beyond the 7,500 miles of copper cabling now in use for the Minuteman silos and launch centers. The Air Force’s planned modifications to Sentinel include more affordable ways to do that work, he said.

In a statement, Northrop Grumman said it “is making important progress on this highly complex weapon system,” and continuing to achieve milestones to mature its design and reduce risk to prepare for production and deployment in the future.

Northrop said those milestones include designing and developing Sentinel’s facilities, support equipment and missile, and tests of components such as its nose cone and three booster stages.

“We continue to perform and meet our commitments under the EMD contract as we move toward delivery of this essential national security capability,” Northrop Grumman said.

LaPlante said that in “hindsight,” the department didn’t originally have enough information on how complicated Sentinel’s ground-based systems would be to accurately estimate its costs. In the nearly four years since, the Pentagon has much better information on hand, he said.

The Air Force also set up a committee chaired by its most senior leaders to oversee its nuclear enterprise, including its bombers, ICBMs and command-and-control, Hunter said. And the department dedicated a program executive officer to be in charge of ICBMs, set up a Nuclear Systems Center, and is changing the leadership of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center from a two-star general to a three-star general, he said.

Hunter said the Air Force will “do what it takes to sustain Minuteman III to meet these warfighter requirements in the interim.”

Gen. Jim Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, said Sentinel’s cost growth is not expected to kick in during the next five years, and the hardest choices on what to cut won’t be made until after the program’s new baseline is set.

“It is a decision for down the road, to decide what trade offs we’re going to need to make,” Slife said.

DIU, whose mission is to help the U.S. Department of Defense better leverage commercial technology, worked with two computing firms on the 18-month effort: Rescale, headquartered in San Francisco, and Parallel Works, based out of Chicago.

The companies partnered with DoD’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program, which is working to make decision-making tools enabled by supercomputers more accessible across the department — from researchers and acquisition officials to operators in the field.

The military uses supercomputers to quickly process large amounts of data that can be used to inform decisions or simulate complex scenarios. For example, a unit could use high-performance computing to understand how the weather forecast might impact a planned ISR operation. Or an engineer designing lighter body armor for soldiers could use it to research materials.

The Pentagon relies largely on physical computers — which are expensive to buy and maintain — to perform this work. Through the DIU effort, Rescale and Parallel Works demonstrated that they could provide these computing tools on the cloud, which means users don’t have to have access to a physical computer to take advantage of the capability.

“Researchers are [now] able to access cloud resources when appropriate to augment their work at on-premises centers,” Benjamin Parsons, chief technology officer for the High Performance Computing Modernization Program, said in a June 27 statement. “This has given them access to a wider variety of hardware, and the ability to scale resources beyond what is currently possible, all within one secure, easy to use, environment.”

Both firms are poised to receive production contracts later this year to scale their high-computing platforms to more users.

Matt McKee, Rescale’s chief operating officer, told C4ISRNET in a July 3 interview that cloud-based computing platforms have played a key role in the private sectors, which have used these tools to significantly reduce engineering cycle times for new product releases.

Those capabilities, he said, could change the way DoD develops, tests and fields new systems over the next three to five years.

“You’re seeing that type of thing reverberating through the private sector industry — so, how do we make sure that the U.S. government also has that agility,” he said. “We need to be able to incorporate everything new that is available to us and put all those resources to bear.”

Kongsberg and MBDA informed Swiss defense-procurement agency armasuisse they won’t submit offers due to time constraints, armasuisse spokeswoman Samanta Leiser told Defense News in an emailed response to questions. The evaluation process will continue as planned, with Diehl remaining as a potential manufacturer, the government office said in a statement on Friday.

Switzerland in April decided to join the Germany-led European Sky Shield Initiative, for which Diehl is a partner for the medium-range component with the Iris-T SLM system. Armasuisse said participation in ESSI doesn’t preempt any decision on what air defense the country is buying, though other partners in the initiative have picked Diehl’s system.

“Armasuisse is awaiting the receipt of the offer from the remaining manufacturing company by mid-July,” the office said. “Apart from the costs, a decision in favor of the remaining candidate in the third quarter of 2024 is dependent on this candidate submitting an offer which meets the requirements of armasuisse.”

Leiser declined to comment on the budget, how many systems Switzerland is seeking or what the delivery timeline will be. The Swiss parliament is currently discussing buying the system within the 2024 defense plan, rather than in 2025 as previously envisioned.

The alpine country in 2016 suspended a previous project to modernize its air-defense system, terminating a contract with Thales for purchasing preparations. Switzerland in 2022 agreed to buy the Patriot system for longer-range, ground-based air defense.

Kongsberg had been asked to provide a quote for the NASAMS system, according to company spokesman Ivar Simensen, who said the company has no further comment. MBDA didn’t respond to requests for comment, while Diehl also didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Slovenia in January agreed to buy one Iris-T SLM fire unit, consisting of a radar component, a tactical operations center and four missile launchers, through the German federal office for defense procurement. Estonia and Latvia signed framework agreements with Diehl in September to buy the system within the framework of ESSI.

One of Switzerland’s criteria is that the system must already be successfully in use. The country also says inclusion of Swiss industry in the contract is “of particular importance,” with a demand that the entire purchase price is compensated with offsetting transactions in Switzerland. “There is no flexibility” with respect to the offset requirement, according to Leiser.

Iris-T SLM is designed to defend against aircraft, cruise missiles and drones to a range of up to 40 kilometers. Diehl says the performance of Iris-T SLM in Ukraine has been “excellent,” achieving “close to 100% hit rate” even during attack waves with more than 12 targets.

Separately, Kongsberg said it signed a contract with the Norwegian Defence Material Agency to the initial development phase of the German-Norwegian supersonic strike missile, or 3SM, set to be deployed on naval vessels from 2035. The contract value for the first development phase is up to 1.5 billion kroner (U.S. $131 million), the company said in a statement on Friday.

Kongsberg, Diehl Defence and MBDA Deutschland agreed in May to set up a partnership for joint development of the new missile.

CEO Adam Bry described the work in an interview with Defense News Wednesday, hours before he testified before Congress.

“I’ve never met drone users as sophisticated as the folks in Ukraine,” Bry said. “We want a team there.”

For now, the hires are in the single digits, with employees focused on engineering and customer support. Bry said he could see Skydio manufacturing drones in the country later on, but thinks building smaller components — like the equipment that helps prevent jamming — is more realistic at first.

The war in Ukraine is the first to feature widespread use of small, commercial style drones. In the last two years, it’s become a sandbox for companies around the world trying to test their equipment. U.S. firms including AeroVironment to Shield AI have sent their products to help defend Ukraine and see how they perform in intense electronic warfare environments.

That said, most of the drones used in Ukraine so far have been made in China, the world’s dominant manufacturer in the sector.

Bry went as far to say that Ukraine’s needs are driving Skydio’s product development, even when that doesn’t overlap with the U.S. government.

His company’s main defense contract is with the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance program, which Skydio won in 2021. Defense firms are now competing for that contract’s second iteration, to be selected in 2025, and Skydio is putting forward its new X10D drone to do so.

Ukraine is also interested in that drone. Its Ministry of Interior has formally requested “thousands” of them — though Bry wouldn’t specify how many — atop the thousand or so drones Skydio has already sent Kyiv since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The requirements laid out by the Army are similar to what Ukraine needs, Bry said, but they’re not one for one.

“This has been a shift in strategy for us,” he said. “Where there’s discrepancy, we’re prioritizing what we’re seeing in Ukraine.”

The main difference between the two sets of requirements is in resiliency. Ukraine’s biggest need is for drones that can counter intense Russian jamming. That is not what the short-range reconnaissance program has focused on to this point, Bry said.

Still his argument is that Ukraine is the “proving ground” for small drones. If they can survive there, that should be a good sales pitch for the U.S. military as well. But that’s not guaranteed, Bry acknowledged.

“It’s a risk from a business standpoint,” he said. “But I think it’s a risk worth taking.”

Steve Wallace, the agency’s chief technology officer, said at the 2024 TechNet Cyber conference presented by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association International that this is a way of getting at a common problem in the Defense Department: a focus on emerging technology without a clear understanding of the problem its intended to solve.

“How does the department understand what you all can bring forward?” he said to a crowd of industry leaders and other cyber professionals in Baltimore June 26. “And then at the same time, how do you understand what the heck we actually need? There’s always that friction there.”

It’s not just an attempt to speed up the acquisitions process as the Pentagon is in a race for digital dominance against China and other nation-state hackers. So much of the conversation around cybersecurity in national defense is around pacing, but with industry constantly coming to market with new tools, there’s a need by government to be a wary purchaser.

These problem statements are a potential way for the Defense Department buy the tools, not just the shiniest ones.

“I think there is that risk that we get excited by new things — which are exciting — and we want to play with them and explore and see what’s possible,” said Scarlett Swerdlow, a senior technical strategist in the DISA’s Emerging Technology Directorate. “But at the end of the day, we have to make sure we’re solving a real problem that a real person has.”

The government often tries to emulate industry. But startups in Silicon Valley aren’t tied to a congressional budget cycle. And they have the room, and often the in-house expertise, to fail fast and pivot often. And though the Defense Department is at the mercy of a constantly changing threat landscape, DISA officials said at the conference that it can be enough for DoD to allow industry to do what it does best and be an evaluator when it comes time to settle on a solution.

“It is our ability to interface with industry, but knowing that the dollars that mature the technology are industry dollars, and not tax dollars, and then understanding where to apply some tactical patience as industry develops tech and [then we] insert ourselves,” said Army Maj. David Courter, chief of combatant command plan integration with the J-5. “I think that’s much different than us writing an initial capabilities document and saying, ‘I need you to build this cool tool.’”

Cautionary tale

One cautionary tale came to mind: the Joint Regional Security Stacks, an ambitious plan to massively consolidate the DoD’s sprawling IT infrastructure that set to be wound down in 2021 following reports of cost overruns and unresolved complexities.

At inception, it was supposed to be a gamechanger for the department, but a 2019 inspector general audit revealed it ultimately wasn’t meeting end users’ needs.

“The whole notion behind JRSS was best of breed for every component in the doggone stack,” Wallace said. “We are going to have the very best of everything. And then we are going to attempt to integrate or interoperate between all these components. Didn’t go well.”

The other issue is ensuring that DoD can verify for itself whether a tool actually does what it claims to do when its adapted for military or defense purposes. That comes into play when the department thinks about how buying one system must be able to operate with existing ones and those to come.

“[That’s] another reason to add that in-house talent that can ... test some of those claims that products make,” said Swerdlow.

Vulcan flew its first mission in January, but a second is required to confirm that the rocket can perform consistently across multiple flights. CEO Tory Bruno told reporters June 26 he’s confident the company will complete the certification process in time to meet the Space Force’s timelines.

“At the moment, we’re quite confident that the payloads will be there,” he said in a media briefing. “I’ll have the rockets. All I need are satellites, and I should be able to fly them.”

ULA, along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is one of two companies with rockets cleared to fly national security space missions for DOD and the intelligence community. The company is in the process of replacing its legacy Atlas V and Delta IV vehicles — longtime workhorse rockets for the U.S. government — with the more powerful Vulcan.

The company previously expected Vulcan to begin flying national security missions in 2022, following certification by the Space Force that the rocket is cleared to fly high-value missions. Repeated delays — many involving the rocket’s BE-4 engine built by Blue Origin — have slowed that process.

Blue Origin has largely overcome those engine setbacks, but ULA faced a new challenge in recent months when it learned that the payload for its second Space Force certification mission — Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane — was behind schedule.

Bruno told reporters that because of those delays and the need to certify Vulcan, the rocket will now carry an inert payload built by ULA as a backup. He described the payload as a mass simulator that will feature proprietary experiments and demonstrations that will inform future technology development for the company.

Once that mission launches, the company will work closely with the Space Force to support the necessary analysis to validate Vulcan’s performance. Bruno noted that because the service has had several months to review data from the rocket’s first mission, it shouldn’t take long to finalize the certification after the second flight.

“It’s sort of pre-staged and ready to go,” he said. “All they really have to do is receive the data from us with the analysis we also provide to them and kind of go down the list and say, ‘Yep, that’s what we expected.’”

Independent review team

ULA’s payload swap and its push toward its second certification flight follow criticism from the Space Force about Vulcan’s delayed debut and concerns that the company may struggle to ramp up the rocket’s launch cadence.

The Washington Post reported in May that Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, sent the company a letter relaying those concerns and calling for Lockheed and Boeing to convene an independent review team to consider whether ULA is capable of meeting the service’s launch demands.

“I recommend that you work together over the next 90 days to complete an independent review of ULA’s ability to scale its launch cadence,” Calvelli said in the letter.

Bruno said that team has since formed and is in the process of reviewing ULA’s manufacturing facilities before moving on to its launch site.

He said he welcomes input from the group. In fact, once that work is completed, Bruno plans to stand up a longer-term review team that will continue to monitor Vulcan’s progress until the company has achieved full-rate production.

“I’m a big believer in that,” he said. “When your team is working really hard in the trenches, sometimes it’s good to have some senior folks who have done it before that are stepping back from it and not driving every day, feeling schedule pressures and all that, to be taking an objective look and give you advice.”

Production ramp-up

Bruno said that amid the reviews and the company’s focus on national security space launch certification, ULA is working to ensure its factories, launch facilities and supply chain are positioned to support an increased launch cadence in the coming years.

In 2025, ULA plans to launch 20 missions, some of which will fly on Vulcan and some on its Atlas V rocket.

“It’s absolutely appropriate for everyone, including my customer, to focus on ramping up the rocket. For us, that is the primary thing we’re working on right now,” he said. “It requires two things . . . a much higher production rate in the factory and in our supply chain, and then infrastructure that supports the higher launch rate at the launch site.”

At its factory, the company has converted space once dedicated to its Delta line of rockets to produce Vulcan and is doing the same with its Atlas line, which will fly another 16 missions before it retires.

The company is nearly finished with the Vulcan rockets that will fly the two national security missions it’s lined up to launch this year, Bruno said, noting that the first will arrive at Cape Canaveral in August and the second soon after.

On the supply chain side, ULA has worked with suppliers to shore up its inventory early, in advance of the increased launch rate. And at the launch site, it’s converting an existing facility to one that can support payload and rocket integration. The company had initially planned to activate the facility next June, but Bruno said he’s accelerating that schedule to early 2025.

“The key to the higher launch rate at the launch site is having a whole other [vertical integration facility], a who other lane, if you will, so you can be building rockets simultaneously,” he said.

At the TechNet Cyber conference presented by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association International in Baltimore on June 25, Resnick said his office received pushback on its aggressive goals for meeting zero-trust and saw a need to codify its role in the governmentwide race toward network security.

The memo will give Resnick’s office “bite” and an “ability to command and control zero trust in the Department of Defense,” he said.

At the inception of the portfolio office, which was stood up in 2022, Resnick said he was told his office didn’t have Title 10 authority to set zero-trust requirements or priorities. Military officials said they had to hear orders from their commands. In a nutshell, Title 10 is what gives DoD power to make decisions. It assigns the defense secretary “authority, direction and control” over all subordinate agencies and commands.

When the zero-trust office came on the scene, it was new, and Resnick is now working to ensure his team has the ability to act as subject-matter experts on zero trust.

“You will see language in it that makes it very clear what the portfolio office’s capabilities are and the power that we have over telling the department just how to do things in terms of policy deadlines,” he said. “But it also clearly outlines ... the military departments’ [and] the agencies’ roles and responsibilities for zero trust.”

Resnick did not give a date for the memo but said it was imminent.

In the next couple of months, Resnick is also aiming to clarify gray areas of shared responsibility of zero-trust, since both civilian and military agencies are tasked with implementing it.

Directive-type memos tend to have an expiration date, but they can be converted into instructions that establish policy.

Leonardo had told unions in Rome that the plant at Grottaglie would need to shut down for four months to deal with a decrease in the usual amount of work performed for the 787 Dreamliner passenger.

Boeing told its staff in April it expected a slowdown in production and deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner because of a shortage of component supplies. The hitch followed quality issues that suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in 2022.

“Lower growth in the production and delivery of the Boeing 787 required a four-month plant shutdown to align production volumes with the short-term reduction in demand,” Leonardo said.

To fill the gap, Leonardo has started work at the facility on the wing of the new Eurodrone UAV — being built by a team of European governments and their local defense industries — and on the fuselage of the prototype of Leonardo’s remotely piloted Proteus helicopter.

Leonardo is also working on the fuselage of the VX4 electric aircraft at Grottaglie on behalf of the British firm Vertical Aerospace, the Italian company said, adding that the projects are employing 100 people.

Next, Grottaglie is to host the production of Leonardo’s AW609 tiltrotor, which the firm expects will be certified next year.

Built for civil customers with an eye on military applications, the AW609 is a long-term project that started life as a collaborative program with Bell before the U.S. business pulled out in 2011.

Leonardo said it is also focusing research work into new composite materials for aircraft at Grottaglie.

Leonardo has said delays at Boeing may cost it €50 million (U.S. $54 million) this year.

The Joint Fires Network is a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command initiative to improve coordination between commanders and network any sensor from any platform to feed targeting guidance to any weapon system. Valiant Shield is focused on integrating forces across domains with thousands of U.S. military personnel participating along with 200 ships, aircraft and ground vehicles.

The JFN demonstration during Valiant Shield “integrated technologies with third-party capabilities as part of an enterprise architecture,” Lockheed said in a June 20 statement.

“The exercise showcased the seamless integration of Lockheed Martin’s advanced command and control functions, employing Operational Planning to coordinate real-time decision-making across the theater of operations, with all the Services and operational domains,” it said. “This approach enhanced the agility and responsiveness of joint operations, using live real-time data, and producing joint tasking orders in an operationally relevant environment.”

Lockheed’s digital C2 system combines its fielded battle management, command and control software with other technologies from industry, the company notes.

To participate in Valiant Shield, the company said it made improvements to its C2 Planning Software that included “streamlining operator workflows by making machine interactions intuitive, enabling real-time monitoring, and facilitating seamless integration with other technologies.”

The company also trained operators on high-fidelity mission simulators prior to the exercise to learn how to use the C2 planning system.

Lockheed has now participated in seven exercises to continue to work on refining its digital C2 capabilities, it said.

For example, the company participated in Northern Edge, an experiment in the Indo-Pacific theater that demonstrated synchronization of technology that could feed into the Pentagon’s connect-everything-everywhere campaign called Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2.

The company plans to continue to bring technology to exercises and demonstrations in the Indo-Pacific to help build joint, networked capability.

The proposals came in two separate amendments to the House’s version of fiscal 2025 defense policy legislation, which the panel adopted June 14. Both were put forward by Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn.

The Taiwan provision calls for the Defense Innovation Unit to study the feasibility of establishing a “strategic partnership” with the country’s ministry of defense. That could include coordinating on things like defense industrial priorities and dual-use technology development as well as helping Taiwan establish pathways for startups research and development efforts.

The Israel amendment emphasizes similar opportunities, but also calls for DIU to work with the Israeli military to counter Iran’s development of dual-use defense technologies and “harmonize global posture through emerging technology.”

The U.S. has vowed support for both nations, sending Israel more than $12.5 billion since the start of its war with Hamas last October. In April, Congress approved $4 billion in aid to Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners as part of a $95 billion package that included funding for Ukraine and Israel.

The call to deepen that support through more collaboration on commercial technology comes as DIU looks to be more embedded with partners around the globe — a key component of its vision for growth in the coming years, a strategy called DIU 3.0. The goal is to create a pathway for DIU innovation to be shared with allies who may also need it.

“We must connect the solutions created by U.S. tech companies to allied and partner acquisition organizations when appropriate — and connect capabilities developed by our partner nations’ companies to our own needs and to one another — especially in a conflict, when speed is critical,” according to the DIU 3.0 strategy, which was released in February.

As part of that effort, DIU is bolstering its relationships with existing innovation initiatives in partners countries — including India, the United Kingdom and Australia — and helping those without such organizations to establish them.

DIU is also embedding itself within the Defense Department’s combatant commands. To date, it has units in five of the seven COCOMs.

Matthew Way, who leads DIU’s counter uncrewed aerial systems portfolio, said these partnerships with combatant commands not only bring the organization closer to the operators but they also give commanders another tool to leverage technology from commercial and non-traditional companies.

For example, DIU is heavily involved in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate, which is designed to ensure the command’s top priority technology projects have a network of support within DOD and industry.

“That’s really helped flatten communications,” Way said during Applied Intuition’s June 13 Nexus Conference in Washington, D.C. “The way we approach our problem sets is really working with combatant commands and end users.”

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s June 18 approvals included 291 Altius 600M-V loitering munitions from Anduril, plus 720 Switchblade 300s from AeroVironment. The former is valued at $300 million and the latter at $60.2 million.

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The Altius 600M-V package includes warheads and electro-optic/infrared cameras, pneumatic launchers, transport trailers and ground control stations. The 47lb (12kg) aircraft has a 276-mile (440km) flight range and 4-hour endurance.

As for the Switchblade 300, it comes with both anti-personnel and anti-armor warheads. It is smaller, with a 3.69lb (1.68kg) weight and just a 20-minute endurance.

Chen Kuo-ming, a Taipei-based defense analyst, told Defense News the Switchblades are suitable for anti-personnel use, and the Altius against armor.

The weapons should be delivered in 2024-2025.

“In the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s frequent military operations around Taiwan, the U.S. side in this case agreed to sell arms items that will have reconnaissance and immediate strike capabilities and can respond quickly to enemy threats,” Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.

The U.S.-Taiwan Business Council also applauded the potential sales. Council President Rupert Hammond-Chambers noted they “add substantially to Taiwan’s inventory of mobile smart munitions, which can be used during on-island fighting all the way through to attacking People’s Liberation Army assets off Taiwan’s coastline”.

Chen said he believes these loitering munitions are good for Taiwan, since they can be used by independent units, even if the country’s navy and air force have been defeated.

However, he expressed concerns about their price compared to the cost of antitank missiles, for example. He also questioned the ability of Taiwanese frontline units to see and therefore target enemies beyond visual range.

Chen said the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology – Taiwan’s defense research and development agency – had displayed various drones, including a loitering munition – at a 2023 Taipei defense exhibition. However, “Until now, we have no real loitering munition for the army to use. So after about nine months, the U.S. government decided to sell these to Taiwan.”

Hammond-Chambers also noted, “Taiwan currently has domestic companies who are working with foreign partners to develop their own indigenous mobile smart munitions. In conjunction with Foreign Military Sales cases such as these, we should expect the Ministry of National Defense to also start procuring locally to meet their defensive requirements.”

At last month’s Shangri-Li Dialogue in Singapore, Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, outlined a plan to strike back if China attacks Taiwan. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities … so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that the per-unit cost of an Altius loitering munition, which the manufacturer has declined to name on the record, cannot be reliably inferred from the overall price tag of the foreign military sale.

Gabe Camarillo, the Army under secretary, who previewed the effort last fall, signed the directive in May, Swanson said, which enables the Army to grow its digital engineering capability across the force using current development programs to pave the way while promoting increased interoperability and developing a capable and experienced workforce.

Already, the defense industry is using digital engineering, including digital twins, to develop future vertical lift aircraft, combat vehicles and even hypersonic weapons.

“We view digital engineering as the linchpin of all the digital transformation efforts that we have ongoing today,” Swanson said in a June 18 press briefing at the Pentagon.

“Data, the way that software communicates, the output of that software, and how we inform our soldiers and commanders to make real time decisions, [artificial intelligence] [are] pivotal, critical,” she said. “Leveraging that data, leveraging those software capabilities; digital engineering is really how it all comes together,”

The directive policy has four tenets. The first is to establish digital engineering focus areas, the second is to promote interoperability and implementation across the force, the third is to establish and monitor programs identified as “pathfinders” and the fourth is to develop talent and expertise.

The Army has identified three focus areas for the strategy: Ground vehicles; aviation; and sensors.

The aviation focus area takes many lessons learned from industry which has been using digital engineering for aircraft design heavily. The Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, one of the DE pathfinder programs, was designed from the beginning in a digital environment and has served as a prime example for how the service plans to develop major weapon systems digitally going forward. FLRAA was built and flown in record time because it was designed digitally.

The ground vehicle focus area will draw from the automotive industry, according to the directive, which, “leverages DE heavily in designing cars and trucks today and has gained tremendous efficiencies and increased quality as a result.”

The Army is already using digital engineering in its XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle competitive design effort from the very beginning and is therefore one of the service’s pathfinder programs to “illustrate DE’s potential contributions, highlight existing policies and processes that may hinder a program’s ability to implement DE and identify how to advance DE adoption in various contexts,” the directive states.

XM30 program challenges

The challenges programs face as they begin to implement digital engineering as part of the design and development process were recently highlighted in the XM30 program. In the Government Accountability Office’s weapon systems annual assessment, officials found “it took longer to release the request for proposals due to a lack of experience with digital engineering while directing contractors to use specific software design approaches.”

Additionally, the Army “lacked precedent for scoping a digital open architecture project, which delayed the Source Selection and Evaluation Board process,” the GAO found.

XM30 was “really first in terms of putting [DE] out in an RFP that way,” Swanson said. “There was learning to be done and so I think that’s why it took a little bit longer, but I think sometimes you do have to go a little slow to go fast because I think they will absolutely benefit and the return on investment is there.”

One of the challenges that still exists, and that the XM30 program is working through, is related “to the fact that we don’t have interoperable digital engineering tools in industry,” Swanson said. “It’s a big problem.”

The Army “is not going to direct everybody to use a certain tool,” she said. “The lack of ability to cleanly and easily share data between all those tools causes challenges and that’s not just inherent to what we’re doing. That’s across the industry.”

The industry is planning to adopt new standards for digital engineering tools to increase interoperability to solve that challenge, Swanson said. The goal to establish those standards is targeted for the end of the summer, she added.

Other pathfinder programs the Army is using to guide its digital engineering transformation are the Integrated Fires Mission Command, the Joint Targeting Integrated Command and Control Suite, the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier and the Program Executive Office Aviation Logistics Data Analysis Lab for UH-60 Black Hawk, CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache helicopters.

Selecting some older programs as pathfinders, like the M113, may come as a surprise, but according to Swanson, the M113 has a digital twin

“There is a lot of reuse of parts between the M113 and our newer vehicles and so being able to take that digital twin, leverage it and evolve, it is great,” she said.

One of the bigger challenges as the Army seeks to execute the directive will be to extend digital engineering capabilities beyond the development realm.

“We want to build those digital threads from requirements all the way to sustainment,” Swanson said. “That requires all of our partners within the Army that help us acquire these technologies and these programs and so that’s really what this directive is about is being able to set the stage to enable everybody else to do it.”

Jennifer Swanson, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering and software, said the effort will shed light on how the service’s acquisition and logistics enterprise could take advantage of generative AI tools to make processes like contract writing and data analysis more efficient.

“The pilot’s not just about increasing our productivity, which will be great, but also — what are the other things that we can do and what are the other industry tools that are out there that we might be able to leverage or add on,” Swanson said June 18 at Defense One’s Tech Summit in Arlington, Va.

The Army is the latest Defense Department agency to announce efforts to experiment with generative AI. The Air Force and Space Force last week unveiled their own experimental tool — the Non-classified Internet Protocol Generative Pre-Training Transformer, or NIPRGPT. And in 2023, the Navy rolled out a conversational AI program called Amelia that sailors could use to troubleshoot problems or provide tech support.

Swanson said she’s optimistic about the potential for generative AI, especially for laborious specialties like contract writing and policy where automation could release some strain on the Army’s workforce.

“In the area of contracts and in the area of policy, I think there’s a huge return on investment for us,” she said. “Might [AI] one day be able to write a contract? We hope so. But we’ve got to pilot and test it and make sure everybody’s comfortable with it first.”

The large language model the service will use for the effort is different from systems like ChatGPT, Swanson said, because it is trained on Army data. It will also provide citations that indicate where the data it provides originated, a feature that will help the service fact-check that information.

The pilot is part of a broader effort within the Army to identify both the pitfalls and the opportunities that come with widely adopting AI tools. In March, the service announced a 100-day plan focused on reducing the risk associated with integrating AI algorithms.

As part of that exercise, Swanson said, the Army reviewed its spending on AI research and found that testing and security are the two biggest gaps toward fielding these tools more broadly. The service also identified 32 risks and 66 mitigations it can implement to reduce their impact. Further, it created a generative AI policy that it will apply to the pilot in order to set parameters for the effort. That policy includes a requirement that there be a “human in the loop.”

The generative AI pilot will lead into the next phase of the effort — a 16-month focus on how to use the technology operationally. Findings from that work will inform the Army’s budget for fiscal 2026.

“So the 100 day plan is setting the conditions — where are we at — and then the 500 day plan is really about operationalizing it,” she said.

Florent Groberg, vice president of strategy and optimization at private investment firm AE Industrial partners, said that as the Army moves through these review processes and experiments with AI, it should be transparent with industry about what it wants and then move quickly to leverage the tools companies are developing.

“To me, it’s really understanding the framework of what you want to accomplish,” he said during the same panel with Swanson. “Put some boundaries out there and then go do it.”

The multinational firm presented its Ground Warden beyond line-of-sight technology here during the Eurosatory defense and security conference.

In one scenario presented by MBDA, a firing post is located above a village, concealed within hilly terrain. As an enemy target is detected from the shooter’s point of view, that data is relayed to a control system.

When the first missile is launched, it processes images in real time during its flight trajectory and before hitting the identified threat. That data is then fed to the new man-portable module, dubbed Ground Warden, and used to inform any subsequent missiles of concealed threats.

The Ground Warden is based on MBDA’s combat-proven Akeron anti-tank guided missile system and is the company’s answer to a “growing need for reactivity” in increasingly fast-paced combat.

A second simulation presented to reporters stemmed from an unmanned aerial vehicle’s perspective around an area heavily populated by trees, which company representatives said make it difficult for missiles to reach their targets.

This scenario was meant to show the Ground Warden can work alongside drones. In this context, the UAV can provide an overview and recording of the operational environment that it then relays to the AI module and command system. The Ground Warden can further provide insights to the gunner of where the target — in this case a tank — can be intercepted and when to fire.

MBDA makes a similarly named platform, the Sky Warden, which is a counter-drone system designed to control a large range of sensors and effectors.

The company will use its own money, plus some support from the state of Rhode Island, to establish the factory in Quonset Point.

The factory is set to open in late 2025, being operations in early 2026, and then reach full capacity by the end of that year: 50 hulls a year, with the ability to scale up to 200 a year if customer demand calls for that.

Until the facility opens, the company will continue to build Dive-LD hulls in its Quincy, Massachusetts, maritime engineering center. Anduril in February received a contract to provide the Defense Department with Dive-LD vehicles through Defense Innovation Unit’s Commercial Solutions Opening process. The U.S. Navy subsequently awarded the company an $18.6 million award using that contract vehicle.

Anduril’s chief strategy officer, Chris Brose, told reporters June 11 the company proved the maturity and utility of its Dive-LD vehicle during a swim-off event last year that led to the DIU contract. But a remaining and recurring question from the government has been, “can Anduril ramp production to really hit high-rate manufacturing numbers?”

He said the Quonset Point factory will “show the U.S. government that we are ready to and able to deliver on large contracts, if those contracts are forthcoming.”

The standup of the 100,000-150,000 square foot production facility will create more than 100 jobs in the next five years.

It will also allow Anduril to try to realize its vision to build a massive fleet of AUVs. A company statement notes the Dive-LD family of vehicles is “designed from the ground-up for production at scale, with a heavy emphasis on commercial-off-the-shelf components with robust supply chains, a modular design, and advanced, scalable manufacturing techniques that enable rapid iterations based on customer needs.”

The company can build 12 Dive-LD vehicles at the Quincy facility today, or could scale up to 24 a year if needed by adding extra shifts.

“We’re out of space in terms of our ability in the Quincy facility to meet the demand that we’re seeing from the Navy at present, let alone where we believe that’s going in the future,” Brose said.

“This is the challenge that I think all defense companies have in terms of, how much to facilitize in order to meet a demand that is not always crystal clear,” Brose continued. “Our approach to that is, we’re going to lean forward. We’re going to invest in ourselves; we’re going to invest in our ability to produce these kinds of systems in a totally different way. And we’re going to put the facilities in place to meet a demand that that we expect to grow,” rather than wait for the government to award a contract and have to play catch-up in building a larger factory.

As for the location in Quonset Point, Brose said the region is a “phenomenal center of undersea expertise and production.”

“Nav[al] Undersea Warfare Center, other major contractors that are performing on significant undersea programs, access to the water — you just have an enormously rich environment of undersea expertise, talented workforce, and it’s phenomenal for Anduril to be a part of that and plug into that,” Brose said.

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck has watched those launches while smaller and emerging providers like his own company lacked a clear pathway to compete for the missions.

He and other launch executives have encouraged the Space Force to create entry points for firms building new rockets. And now they may have a way forward.

The Space Force announced last year that the next phase of its strategy for procuring launches would set aside missions for new providers. It was welcome news for Beck, who believes his company’s Neutron rocket, still in development, will be a top contender.

“That was the right approach,” Beck told C4ISRNET in an interview. “We really wanted that approach to occur, and we were very vocal that that’s the way it should be.”

The strategy for Phase 3 of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program, or NSSL, includes two lanes in which companies can compete to launch military satellites.

Lane 1, which will include 30 launches from 2025 through 2034, is for new providers. Missions in this category have less stringent requirements, and companies will have a chance to join annually as they prove their rockets are ready.

The service plans to select initial, eligible Lane 1 companies this spring but won’t award the first round of contracts until next year. While launch vehicles don’t need to move through the traditional certification process, firms must fly their rockets by Dec. 15, 2024, to receive an initial contract.

The remaining 49 launches will carry heavier Space Force payloads and are reserved for companies able to meet a more stringent set of security and performance requirements. Contracts for Lane 2 are expected this summer.

Most of those missions will go to two firms — likely incumbents SpaceX and ULA — but the service has the option to choose a third provider if a company presents a sound plan to certify its rocket for Lane 2 launches by 2026.

If the government selects a third firm, it will likely be Blue Origin, whose New Glenn vehicle — designed to fly large payloads — is slated to fly this year.

Smaller companies have long-term ambitions to compete for more lucrative contracts, like those in Lane 2, but are targeting the more accessible missions in Lane 1 in the near term. As the deadline approaches for the Space Force’s first round of selections, none of those newcomers expect to have their rockets off the ground in time to qualify.

Rocket Lab’s Neutron was closest, according to its internal projections, but the firm announced May 6 it is now targeting mid-2025 for the vehicle’s debut.

Other companies developing medium-lift launch vehicles — which can carry 4,400-44,100 pounds into orbit — to compete for Lane 1 contracts include ABL Space Systems, which is targeting next year for the first launch of its RS1 rocket; Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman, who are working together to develop the Medium Launch Vehicle and also aiming for a 2025 flight; and Relativity Space, which expects to fly its Terran R rocket in 2026.

Those timelines mean that — despite the Space Force creating opportunities for emerging launch vehicles to compete — initial contracts for those missions could end up going to NSSL program incumbents and potentially Blue Origin in Lane 2.

Development delays

Launch executives and outside experts aren’t surprised by the rockets that remain ineligible to receive contracts next year, despite the Space Force’s strategy.

While the initially slow on-ramp to competition may present a symbolic blow to the service’s approach and raise eyebrows in Congress, the reality is that developing launch systems is challenging and schedules tend to slip — as evidenced by Rocket Lab’s latest setback.

“Getting Neutron to the pad this year was an ambitious greenlight schedule that we had — a path to closing if every single aspect went according to plan,” Beck said in the company’s May 6 earnings call. “As we’ve always said, this is a rocket development program and this is always filled with gremlins, some in our control and some not.”

Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the Space Force, cautioned against downplaying the significance of the on-ramp opportunities that the service is providing in its strategy.

“The on ramps and off ramps — we shouldn’t just cast those aside because there are companies at different stages of development,” he told reporters April 10 at the Space Symposium in Colorado. “We’ve tried to account for that in our acquisition strategy so that as they develop, as they mature, there’s pathways into contractual arrangements.”

The bigger question, experts said, is how many of these companies can, in the coming years, make a place for themselves within a multibillion-dollar national security launch market dominated by a single player — SpaceX.

The answer to that question will depend on several variables, including commercial launch demand and the continued pursuit of proliferated satellite constellations from both government and private sector customers, according to Joshua Huminski, senior vice president for national security and intelligence programs at the U.S.-based Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. The organization partly focuses on how leaders can address national challenges.

“The demand from the commercial market — which is really going to keep a lot of these companies afloat and in operation — is going to be almost a driver, and it’s a question of: Can the national security space enterprise keep up?” he told C4ISRNET.

Another factor is whether the Space Force can keep its launch procurement strategy agile enough to adapt to that dynamic market. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said the Space Force should focus on creating an environment that fosters competition rather than try to choose winners and losers through a more restrictive approach.

“I think what we should do is try to create the conditions so that the next SpaceX can emerge,” he told C4ISRNET.

SpaceX dominance

That “next SpaceX,” of course, would be competing with the actual SpaceX, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk and has a tight hold on the U.S. launch market. The company’s Falcon 9 rocket flew 207 of the 256 domestic launches conducted between 2020 and 2023, according to data compiled by Harrison.

The firm’s dominance in the military market traces back to 2014, following Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. At the time, ULA — a joint venture of defense giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing — was the sole-source provider of military launches for the U.S. government.

The Russian-made RD-180 engine powered ULA’s workhorse rocket, the Atlas V. Concerned that the U.S. was too reliant on the Russian propulsion system, Congress called for the Pentagon to end its use of the engine and ensure the military is not dependent on a single company to carry national security payloads.

The Defense Department responded in two ways. It developed a process for certifying more rockets to fly these missions. And it provided seed funding to three firms so they could mature their designs for domestically produced rockets: ULA’s Vulcan, Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Northrop Grumman’s OmegA.

Ultimately, SpaceX — which received no DOD development funding but did get money from NASA for its Falcon 9 rocket — was the first new company to successfully onboard an American-made launch vehicle through the Space Force’s certification process. In 2018, SpaceX launched its first national security payload. And in 2020, along with ULA, it won a five-year contract to fly military missions.

Meanwhile, ULA began phasing out its Atlas V rocket and shifted its focus to a new U.S.-sourced launch vehicle, the Vulcan Centaur. The rocket, initially slated to fly in 2019, took its maiden flight in January 2024, after repeated development delays. It must fly one more non-DOD mission before it is certified for NSSL launches.

Surging demand

These events ultimately positioned SpaceX as one of the U.S. military’s primary source of launch services and have helped support its rise in the commercial market.

Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western militaries followed the Pentagon’s earlier course of action and divested Russian-made components from their supply chains. That included Russia’s Soyuz rocket, which at the time held about half of the global launch market share.

Bonnie Triezenberg, a senior engineer at the think tank Rand, described the Soyuz rocket, prior to the 2022 invasion, as “the only counterweight to the Falcon 9.”

“When the Ukraine invasion happened was really when Soyuz was taken off the market,” she told C4ISRNET. “All of that backlog that was on the Soyuz, a couple of them went to India, but the bulk of it all went onto the Falcon 9.”

The exit of Soyuz from the global market came amid a surge in demand for launch services that analysts expect to continue for some time. Quilty Space, a Florida-based consulting firm, estimated in a 2023 report that 20,000 new satellites will be sent to orbit by 2030.

That demand and the state of the Soyuz — combined with recent retirements of many medium and heavy rockets — created a gap in the number of launch vehicles available to meet that demand, Triezenberg said. That gap has drawn companies like Rocket Lab and Firefly, who have a foot in the small launch market, to branch out to medium-lift systems.

Caleb Henry, the director of research at Quilty, said there’s room for more firms to compete in the medium-lift market, but that questions remain about demand, which could shape how much capacity is needed in the long term.

“I do think there’s a role, certainly, for one or more companies to fill that gap,” he told C4ISRNET. “But I don’t have a good guess on how many medium launch vehicles the market will support.”

Triezenberg echoed that sentiment, noting she’s surprised at how many rocket providers started developing medium-lift rockets in recent years. It’s only a matter of time, she said, before the competition starts to thin.

“Things have gotten pretty frothy in the last few years. Everybody’s throwing their hat in the ring,” she added. “You’re going to see some of that froth come out.”

Building a backlog

The lack of affordable launch capacity in the medium and heavy lift markets is what is driving Relativity Space’s development of its Terran R rocket, according to Chief Revenue Officer Josh Brost.

The company has described its approach as customer-centric, focused on containing costs by 3D printing major parts and designing others to be reusable. And while the 270-foot-tall Terran R is “optimized” for launches to low Earth orbit — about 1,200 miles above the planet’s surface — Brost said the vision is for it to fly more stressing missions to higher orbits.

One of the most important parts of Relativity’s strategy, according to Brost, is early spending on manufacturing capacity, which the company hopes will allow it to quickly scale Terran R production.

“Even if you’re reliable and provide great economics, if you can only launch a handful of times a year, you don’t actually move the needle on the market,” Brost said. “The supply-demand imbalance is strong enough now that to be compelling, you need to be coming into the market with lots of capacity.”

Like many of the other emerging rocket companies, Relativity has secured a strong backlog of business for Terran R, despite it never having flown. The company has already signed commercial launch contracts cumulatively worth about $2 billion.

“We have people signing deals today for 2027, 2028, despite the fact that we’re still evolving, because they see the need for the capability we’re developing,” he said. “The commercial market is becoming the first buyer of capability, and then the defense market can benefit from that commercial marketplace.”

The Space Force may not be the biggest customer for Relativity and other growing rocket firms, but its launch needs are still a significant part of its business case. Military launch will likely account for about 30% to 50% of the addressable market for these companies, according to Rand’s Triezenberg.

Although it’s not the Defense Department’s goal to choose which rockets will succeed in the broader market, Triezenberg said the backlog many of these companies have secured indicates that the service’s Phase 3 strategy, and ultimately its procurement decisions, will play a role in how these companies fare.

“I think what the government is trying to do here with the Phase 3 Lane 1 contracts is sort of [build] up the backlog for these emerging providers,” Triezenberg said. “That’s going to help these firms when they go to the capital markets and try to raise money.

“Launch is a very capital-intensive business,” she added. “Those backlogs are important.”

Conditions for competition

While the Space Force’s launch procurement strategy offers the opportunity for new launch providers to compete, some experts and members of Congress have questioned whether there’s more the Pentagon can do to lower barriers for these companies.

Rep. Dale Strong, R-Ala., said May 1 during a House Armed Services Committee hearing that while he applauds the Space Force’s Phase 3 approach, he’s worried established players like SpaceX and ULA will encroach on Lane 1, underbidding on those missions in order to edge out smaller firms.

“I do have concerns about Lane 1,” he said. “I would personally like to see something a bit more concrete to protect them.”

Beck, Rocket Lab’s CEO, told C4ISRNET he’d like to see rules addressing which missions Lane 2 companies can and cannot compete for.

“The real risk you run is competitors in Lane 2 not wanting new entrants to come in and going in there and very aggressively bidding that work or doing other things to make it very difficult for new providers,” he said. “If the whole goal is to on-ramp new providers and utilize the commercial-industrial base, I think there is risk there that it gets stifled by some poor behavior of the incumbents.”

Another way to better foster competition, according to AEI’s Harrison, would be to allow companies to join Lane 1 as soon as they’ve flown their rockets. As the strategy stands, firms must wait until the annual on-ramp period opens.

“Commercial innovation moves faster than a 12-month cycle sometimes,” Harrison said. “Let’s say the on-ramp is in May and a company isn’t ready to bid until that June; they have to wait until the next May to on-ramp again — an 11-month, 12-month delay. That could be the end of that company.”

For smaller firms, building the infrastructure required to support new rockets is also a barrier. Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, said he has talked with the Space Force about pursuing more public-private partnerships to alleviate some costs.

“That’s a $100 million launch complex for a medium launch vehicle,” he told C4ISRNET. “These launch complexes that are required in order to support these national security missions — they’re exorbitantly expensive, and the utility of it is used by the government customer. So there has to be some public-private partnerships.”

KNDS hopes to establish the subsidiary in Ukraine later in June, following months of talks, Chairman Philippe Petitcolin said on the sidelines of a signing ceremony in Paris attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu and KNDS France CEO Nicolas Chamussy.

“The signature marks the beginning of a new era between us and Ukraine, since we’ll have a full subsidiary of KNDS, both the German and French parts, and from there we’ll be able to cooperate with Ukrainian companies,” Petitcolin said. “We’re in discussions with a lot of companies.”

Ukraine operates 386 pieces of KNDS equipment, particularly Leopard tanks and Caesar cannons, and the company still has 250 pieces to deliver based on orders received, which translates to a requirement for “lots and lots of support” according to Petitcolin.

KNDS France CEO Chamussy signed letters of intent with Ukraine’s ENMEK to set up a maintenance center for Caesar cannons and for 3D printing of spare parts, as well as a contract with KZVV to transfer production of 155mm shells.

The maintenance center won’t require any French technicians, as Ukraine is already handling Caesar maintenance with replacement parts shipped from France, according to Chamussy. “The Ukrainians know how to do this very well,” he said.

KNDS France is currently producing one Caesar truck-mounted howitzer a week, according to Petitcolin. The company is on track with plans to lift the manufacturing pace to six per month from four, said Chamussy.

“If there’s sustained demand, we know how to step up the pace from one a week. We know how to do better, we know how to do more, but of course it all depends on the demands we get,” Petitcolin said. He said the company has concrete Caesar orders for 2024, but not yet for 2025, though “there will no doubt be some contracts” at the Eurosatory defense show that starts June 17.

KNDS France has the capacity to increase total artillery production to 12 cannons a month, according to Chamussy. In addition to the Caesar self-propelled gun, the firm also makes the 105mm LG1 towed artillery piece.

KNDS plans to start ammunition manufacture with its local Ukrainian partner within 12 months, according to Petitcolin. In a next step, the company could start manufacturing system modules or even entire systems in Ukraine, the chairman said.

French Armed Forces Minister Lecornu commented on plans to transfer Mirage 2000-5 jets to Ukraine, saying the aircraft in question are in service with the French Air Force right now, including for NATO air-policing missions in Estonia and Romania. The aircraft are gradually being withdrawn from service through 2030 to be replaced by the Rafale.

“So we’re talking about fighter jets that are fully operational,” Lecornu said. He declined to say how many aircraft France will transfer, or which countries might join in a Mirage coalition.

Lecornu said the urgency is to start training Ukrainian pilots on the Mirage 2000. He said France has been training pilots on the French-German Alpha Jet for several months, but the Mirage “is a different category.” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that training normally takes five to six months, meaning Ukrainian pilots could be able to fly the Mirage 2000-5s by the end of the year.

Lecornu also discussed French plans to train a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers, saying rebuilding capacity is “the big priority” for the Ukrainian army. The country faces a challenge of training 15 to 20 brigades, which he described as an “absolutely considerable effort.”

The deal, announced June 5, commits Lockheed to 15 launch reservations and up to 10 optional missions.

“The Firefly team has scaled up Alpha production and testing and significantly streamlined our launch operations to fly Alpha more frequently and responsively,” Firefly CEO Bill Weber said in a statement. “This allows us to continue delivering the one metric ton rocket the industry is demanding.”

The Texas-based launch company set records for the U.S. Space Force in September 2023 when its Alpha vehicle launched a mission within 27 hours of receiving orders. Part of a broader Tactically Responsive Space program, the effort demonstrated the ability to rapidly buy, build integrate and launch a satellite.

Under the agreement with Lockheed, Firefly will launch Alpha, which is designed to carry payloads that weigh up to 1,030 kg, from its facilities on the East and West Coast. The first mission, another responsive space effort, will fly later this year from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company will transport, mate and complete final launch operations on rapid timelines.

Bob Behnken, director of Lockheed’s Ignite Technology Acceleration organization, said the partnership with Firefly is a direct response to the Defense Department and other customers who have asked for faster deliveries of advanced space capabilities.

“This agreement with Firefly further diversifies our access to space, allowing us to continue quickly flight demonstrating the cutting-edge technology we are developing for them, as well as enabling our continued exploration of tactical and responsive space solutions,” he said in a statement.

The two companies previously teamed up for a responsive launch last December. During the mission, Alpha carried an electronically steerable antenna payload built by Lockheed to low Earth orbit, about 1,200 miles above the planet. The sensor was designed to demonstrate faster in-orbit calibration.

However, the rocket experienced an anomaly during the mission and ultimately delivered the payload to the wrong orbit.

Alpha’s first mission for Lockheed under this new agreement will be the rocket’s sixth flight. Prior to that mission, the vehicle will launch a payload for NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration Program, which is designed to send low-cost, small satellites to orbit.

Firefly is also partnered with Northrop Grumman to develop a larger rocket, Medium Launch Vehicle. The firms plan to compete MLV for the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program.

As it so often does, the U.S. government is looking to the private sector for inspiration, and it’s seeing commercial partners leveraging these tools already, officials from the U.S. military and the Pentagon said at the 2024 C4ISRNET Conference on Wednesday. That’s in no small part due to the fact that many of these companies have the workforce on hand to use them and can recruit competitively on pay.

“We have seen Big Tech and large tech companies embracing some of these tools, and they’re moving out with it because they see the value in these methods,” said Benjamin Bishop, deputy director of transition in the Adaptive Capabilities Office of DARPA. “But a lot of those companies ... can pay salaries for this talent that may not translate to other companies in the defense industrial base because their focus area is different.”

There’s also a need, he said, to make these capabilities accessible not just to certifying organizations and those with specialized training or expertise, but to the broader workforce to move U.S. military strategy forward holistically. And it needs to happen fast enough so that the latest technology is not mired in acquisition regulation and rendered obsolete.

“How do we navigate the the non-technical barriers to our transition?” said Bishop. “How do we get the tools into the hands of the warfighters in order to maximize their success?”

The proliferation of digital threats in recent years has forced cybersecurity to become the responsibility of every Pentagon office, civilian and military. Bishop noted that the cyber-contested environment is rapidly become a standard character of war, and the Biden Administration, too, has set top-down goals for every aspect of government to be equipped with security measures in place, whether they contribute directly to national defense or not.

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“To me, that’s not necessarily a technology problem,” said Bishop. “How do we get the technology to be ... understood by the systems that have to certify these products, but also understood by the workforce that’s across our defense industrial base and also in uniform?”

And while partnering with the private sector can and does work, the military itself must develop its own cyber expertise, he said.

On top of trying to meet general manpower goals, the services, too, are recruiting cyber experts to their ranks and contend with how to compensate them uniformly despite different pay scales, [Military Occupation Specialty] titles, and promotion processes, according to Bishop.

In an interview, its new director said the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, nicknamed America’s gatekeeper, is better known for conducting 95% of background investigations for federal workers and military personnel, but less so for its role protecting the nation’s industrial base.

David Cattler, who took the reins in March, wants to change that.

In an effort to centralize the government’s sprawling personnel security system, Congress sought to move this responsibility to DCSA from the Office of Personnel Management, which was finalized via an executive order in 2019. Now, Cattler said he’s in the midst of a “90-day approach” as the leader of an organization that should be at full performance in five years.

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The White House has said small businesses are “the engines of the economy,” and it has told agencies like DCSA to ensure their participation in government contracts. Last year, they spent a record $178 billion on small businesses. DoD alone increased its spend by 8%.

There’s an imperative from government to extend a welcome to small businesses, and DoD has a growing portfolio of commercial technology and services that can diversify the industrial base. There’s also a need to ensure barriers to entry aren’t too high without compromising security. That’s where DCSA comes in.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been in this role for a little less than three months. What’s new to you? What’s your vision for the agency?

I’m a big “first 90 days” person. This is one of several organizations I’ve either joined or created or led over the course of my career that is new or beginning or had some big issues that needed to be addressed. And this one’s no exception.

As far as the “first 90 days” approach, I tend to see this as an organization that after five years should be in full performance. In a lot of ways it is because it builds off a pretty strong legacy, whether you were formerly with the Office of Personnel Management or the Defense Department. We’re talking decades of experience and structure and qualification in the workforce.

The first thing that struck me in this 90 days is that we’re not actually fully confident in every way we should be. We’re not fully mature. Some things have to be worked out. If you put it in commercial terms, we’ve gone through a five-year period of strategic merger and acquisition, and that can be tough because you do need to have a mindset of one culture, one team, one brand.

This is a purpose-built security agency that combines a lot of elements from the legacy Office of Personnel Management and its authorities and statutory responsibilities, along with a similar and impressive set of things from DoD. And the expectations for what DCSA will do span across the federal government.

DCSA is not just America’s gatekeeper; DCSA should be the nation’s premier provider of integrated security services. So the first task is not to assert that we are that, but to have other people see us in that way, and relatedly to have them see us as their preferred partner.

How does DCSA interface with the defense-industrial base and its security?

If you’re outside the national security community, especially the security part of the national security community, and if you’re outside of the defense-industrial base, do you know who we are? I don’t think so. And that’s a real shame because taxpayers are paying $2.8 billion for it this fiscal year. I take this very seriously. You’re paying 15,000 people to do the work.

We were created as a result of yet another inflection point: the OPM hack. We’ve accreted some of these additional responsibilities like the insider threat role, in no small part because of the series, conditions and departmental analysis after the Navy Yard active shooter [incident], Fort Hood, and related tragedies and real problems within the security community to anticipate, detect, characterize, intervene and mitigate those sorts of threats.

If you work for a company, if you want to start one or if you want to keep up business at a company that requires a facility clearance, the odds are pretty good you’re going to work with DCSA. If you have a cyber problem, if you have an insider threat problem or if you have a counterintelligence problem, the odds are pretty good you’re going to interact with DCSA. If you want to be certified to be a professional in a space, or if you want to get better as a professional inside and outside government, you’ll likely interact with DCSA.

What is the ideal relationship between the agency and industry?

Security can be viewed by some as an overhead cost. It’s a must-do, but I’m going to go to compliance. Some — many even — may go the extra mile.

I sent a letter to our key partners in government and in the private sector when I first arrived, saying: “Call me directly, anytime. Send me an email I want to meet you all. I really want to hear from you. If I can help you, I will.”

We’re going to expand CEO-level and C-suite engagement. I get that security can be viewed as overhead and as a cost, but we need to practice security by design, which means that security really should be baked in from the very beginning. Security is a required element to one’s approach to tackling a contract — the same as it is for us in government before we embark on anything.

Be reasonable, particularly on the cost of compliance. You need to be efficient and effective. You don’t have to build to the minimum; you can build in some additions so that there’s more resilience and maybe some fallbacks or spillover so that you’ve got overlapping capabilities.

I was a little surprised by how warmly welcomed I was by industry. We are on the same team. And to be clear, it’s not that they think they’re going to have an easier time in a compliance inspection; that’s not what it is. It’s that you don’t start in an adversarial way. We want industry to be proved to be secure. Nobody who works for DCSA is going out trying to have someone lose their security clearance or fail on a facility clearance review.

So the relationship with industry is critically important. It’s very, very close. And it is mutually respectful, hopeful and very supportive.

The federal government is trying to increase business with small companies. How do you ensure the barriers to entry aren’t too high without cutting corners on security?

A lot of this stuff becomes about balance. We want to trust you. We want you, as a small business, to be able to compete. For classified work, we want you to be able to sustain the facility so you can do the work and compete for more work or different work. But that’s also about trust and the right balance.

Now that the internal directives have been approved, we’re moving forward with Section 847 implementation, [a provision from the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that says DCSA will review Defense Department contracts that exceed $5 million for foreign ownership, control or influence in its supply chain]. The clock will soon start for that to be implemented. Put that human terms: Say I’m the CEO of a company that’s won a DOD contract of $5 million-plus. That’s just about everybody, right? We’re going to have to take a hard look at that coming in. We want 25 calendar days to complete our review.

That’s an inflection point in terms of responsibility, authority and accountability. There’s no one that works at DCSA that wants to be in a position to tell the CEO of a small business: “Sorry, that’s going to take 40 days, 80 days, 120 days.” We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we’re ready when the light turns green, to move forward and be able to satisfy that set of requirements.

That’s why we’ve asked again for more resources and proper authorities. Give us the guiding directives to get the policy framework built so that we know what we’re required to do.

If I put myself in the shoes of somebody in the private sector and ask myself, “Would I just spend money on security?” — maybe, maybe not.

But if the government came to me and explained — and we can and we do — the reason why we have changed this policy that will correspondingly increase cost is X, Y and Z, and we provide the expert that can give you the details, they get it.

Is that baseline trust there, or is DCSA in the rebuilding stage with industry and its stakeholders?

It’s there. The only thing that surprised me was how strongly positive these interactions have been. Industry is telling me: “Wouldn’t it be great if DCSA had more responsibility and authority?”

From a workforce perspective, DCSA conducts 95% of the federal government’s background clearances. How are you tackling the modernization of this system? What advice do you have for someone who’s looking to get cleared for the first time?

One bit of advice I would give to somebody that’s coming in from the outside is: Plan ahead and be realistic.

If you’ve never held a security clearance and you wish to pursue a government job that requires one, it could take some time. Hiring is one thing; onboarding is another.

The second thing I would say is: Be honest. When you open that eApp form and you start typing, fill it out completely and honestly. Don’t overthink it. Not to sound harsh or overly dramatic, but we’re going to find out about things because we’ve got awesome people and great databases, and we’re going to check you six ways to Sunday before we put you in a position of trust. So be honest. A mistake that you made that you’ve picked yourself up from and recovered and moved on from — that’s perfectly understandable. Nobody’s perfect.

The next thing I would stress to people coming in from the outside is: If you’ve had a security clearance and it’s fairly recent, and you are enrolled in [continuous vetting], you can actually be re-onboarded, re-adjudicated and authorized for onboarding very quickly. And that’s another element of Trusted Workforce, [a whole-of-government approach to reforming the personnel security process].

Reciprocity is also a piece of this. If you come into the DOD, I’m proud to say that the DCSA team can get that done for your employer in less than one day. Reciprocity going in other directions can be more of a challenge.

What’s the latest on timelines for security clearances?

When we talk about the timelines that are in Trusted Workforce — and where we are with the inventory and the goals — what we’re tracking right now is the toughest 10% of cases.

So in 90% of the cases, you’re going to move quite quickly through because you probably haven’t had a brush with the law or you haven’t traveled extensively.

Many of the things we’re looking for in terms of potential indicators where — it’s not a bar to your clearance or a bar to your re-clearance, it’s just something that gets flagged for investigation and adjudication, and we have to take a deeper look. That deeper look can take time. And that time can aggregate.

Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to do interviews remotely, but we also do a great number of interviews and investigations in person. It can be challenging. People are working from home, sometimes in remote areas. They’re working odd schedules. Your references need to be checked, and they’re working from home, they’re working on schedules, they’re traveling. That all takes time to get through.

Anduril Industries, Integrated Solutions for Systems Inc., Leidos Dynetics, and Zone 5 Technologies will develop prototypes for the Enterprise Test Vehicle project, the Air Force Armament Directorate and Defense Innovation Unit announced Monday. More than 100 firms applied to take part in this program.

The prototypes should be ready for the first flight demonstration in late summer or fall, DIU and the Air Force said. After those demonstrations take place, DIU and the Air Force will pick at least one promising prototype to keep developing into a version that can be rapidly scaled into production.

“We are excited to partner with DIU,” Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in the release. “The ETV presents an opportunity to leverage promising ideas from industry to create and refine affordable designs for test capabilities that can be produced on a relevant timeline.”

Cassie Johnson, the ETV program manager for the Air Force Armament Directorate, said it was important to create more opportunities for non-traditional aerospace firms to meet the program’s cost, timeline, and production quantity goals.

ETV is intended to be a test vehicle designed using an open systems architecture approach, which can be updated with modular subsystems and then used to validate whether those new components work properly.

DIU said in a September 2023 solicitation that the system should have a range of 500 nautical miles, or 926 kilometers, and be able to deliver a kinetic payload.

DIU and the Air Force said Monday that vendors will minimize the use of expensive materials and instead use commercial off-the-shelf components as much as possible to hold down costs and keep supply chains flowing.

The ETV vendors also have to make sure the drones are not “over-engineered” for their mission, use modern manufacturing and design techniques, and be able to produce at a high rate that would not be possible with a more elaborate design.

DIU and the Air Force said that ETV will be able to be deployed in large numbers and using a variety of launch methods to “create an overwhelming dilemma for any defending adversary.”

ETV is expected to be used as part of the Pentagon’s ambitious Replicator program.

The Air Force Research Laboratory, U.S. Special Operations Command, Naval Air Systems Command, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command are also collaborating on the ETV program or helping evaluate systems.

Jason Levin, senior vice president of Anduril’s air dominance and strike division, said in a statement that the company expects to be able to deliver an affordable, modular and capable prototype that can become the basis for large-scale production of future aircraft.

“Like all Anduril products, our ETV solution aims to deliver capabilities in years, not decades, filling critical capability gaps on a relevant timeline,” Levin said. “In this case, that means pioneering solutions to enable on-demand large-scale manufacturing to achieve affordable mass.”

Mark Miller, senior vice president for missile and aviation systems at Leidos Dynetics, said in an email to Defense News that the company’s proposed aircraft will be a “compelling offer” for the ETV project.

“Leidos’ ETV technology is the perfect merger of our strike systems expertise, as exemplified by the modular, affordable and network enabled GBU-69 Small Glide Munition, and our recent experience developing the air-launched, and air-recovered, X-61 Gremlins” drone, Miller said.

Kyle Maxhimer, president of California-based firm Zone 5, said in a statement that the company’s work on ETV will further its progress on technologies such as unmanned aerial systems.

“ETV represents a natural evolution of our family of air-launched effects, and we are proud to partner with DIU and the Armament Directorate to bring this capability forward at scale,” Maxhimer said.

A statement from Integrated Solutions was not immediately available.